


Family spirit

by Ethel09



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 19:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21081584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethel09/pseuds/Ethel09
Summary: Some insight into the thoughts of several members of the Shelby family . Set durign season 1.





	1. Jacob and Esau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The complex feelings of Arthur Shelby towards his younger brother.

Sometimes, Arthur feels as if the war broke his life in two in such a way that he doesn’t know anymore if he’s dreamt what was before, or if what he’s living now is real.

Is that defiant and opinionated young woman his sister Ada he'd left with pinafores and braided hair ? Has baby Finn really become that quiet and solemn ten-years-old? Even John has been changed by the war, as little of it as he has seen thanks to his young age and early family charges. What has changed as well (or was it always like this ?) is that he’s not the one his youngest brothers look up to, he’s not the one Ada feels the urge to defy.

That role is filled by the one whom the war has changed the most. By Tommy, who went to war as a fun-loving teen, dreaming of the free life of a gypsy horse dealer, and came back a hardenend leader of men.

Of course, Tommy has always been the clever one, has always had a knack for making the others listen to him. But who could have imagined that within a year after their return, he would have turned their dwindling family business of illegal bookmaking and petty theft into a powerfull gang, a force to be acknowledged by the whole city ? And above all, who could have imagined that Tommy, not Arthur, would become the head of the family, when the boy is less than two years older than John, and five years younger than Arthur ?

Some part of Arthur doesn’t mind at all, the part who after Ypres and Gallipoli only wants to rest, the part who never really got over their father’s abandonment and always wanted someone to tell him what to do to keep the family safe.

And yet, it smarts sometimes, to see the suprised looks of the rival gang leaders, or of any kind of newcommer in Small Heath, when they understand that the Peaky Blinders’ boss is not the obviously older Arthur, but the young man at his side, with his boyish features and icy blue eyes. And it smarts when John asks Tommy and not him to welcome a girl he loves in the family, when Finn shows too obviously which brother he tries to imitate in his games. And it’s even more annoying to see how normal it seems to Tommy and Polly to lock themselves in the office as soon as a really important decision is to be made, leaving him to wait outside whith the youngest members of the clan. And what kind of fool does he look like, then, when some rookie from the gang, finding him more approachable than Tommy, asks him questions which he cannot answer ?

But nothing of this could compare with how he had felt when he’d had to admit to Arthur Senior that he was not the one who could decide to take him in or not, and when he’d been sharply silenced by Tommy on the matter.

Of course, part of him is in awe of his little brother, the same way he was when Tommy managed to get good grades at school in spite of skipping it so often, or to find yet another way to get some food and fill the little ones' bellies.

But sometimes, part of him hates Tommy as well, for having somehow stolen his birthright.

Being of gypsy origins, Arthur has been raised in the catholic faith and knows little about the Old Testament. Yet a fellow soldier in the trenches of Gallipoli used to read them some stories from it, and he remembers the tale of Jacob, who managed to take his older brother’ s birthright from him. At the time, he’d thought this Jacob a tricky little bastard. Still does.

Sometimes, he compares himself to the dispossed Esau, because it can be easier to feel unfairly treated. But some other times, he vaguely wonders if Tommy has really chosen to shoulder a burden that originally wasn’t his own, and he’s not sure anymore about which brother might have been wronged by the other one.


	2. Polly's God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About Polly's own personal God, and her thoughts when she's praying.

Polly prays for the boys, because she knows that none of them will.

Her God is not the judgmental tyrant the Prodies imagine Him to be, not even the distant and stern accountant who according to Father Donnelly will only forgive her sins if she says the proper number of Hail Marys. Polly’s God can understand everything.

He understands that the war destroyed Athur’s mind, took away what little sense he ever had and that he can’t help it when he lashes out like a rabid dog.

And He understands that John has just enough brains to do as he’s told without blundering, at least if briefed properly. He too is a violent man but Polly’s God knows that it runs in his blood, that most of the Shelbys are violent people, men and women alike.

But when it come to Tommy, Polly is not always sure how to make his case convincingly. Tommy, who is so clever whereas his brother are not, for whom violence is not an impulse he can’t resist, but just one of the many means he’s ready to use to achieve his ends.

Arthur and John do bad things, but they don’t know better, so Polly knows that her God will forgive them and protect them. But will he protect Tommy, who always knows all too well what he’s doing ?

Sometimes, Polly is not sure of who it was who sent such cleverness to Tommy : God of the Devil. Tommy’s grandmother, poor soul, was sure it was the Devil, but then, she wasn’t the brightest of creatures. No need to evoke any surnatural interference, though : there are also some bright people in the Shelby family, others than Tommy. To begin with, his mother was a very sensible person. And then, there is his father, Arthur senior, who is rather astute, if too shiftless to use his brains for anything else than conning people into lending him some money. What he has transmitted to Tommy is rather his charisma, his ability to make the others do what he wants. Tommy’s grandfather, named Thomas as well, as all the second sons in the Shelby family, was a clever man and an authoritative patriarch. He was the one who had started the family business. And then, there is Polly herself, who managed to run it during the war, in spite of the huge handicap it was to be a woman in that line of work. But the brightest member of the Shelby family before Tommy’s birth had been Polly’s second brother, named Thomas as well (which was the reason why Tommy had always been called Tommy, as there already was a Thomas junior). Much younger than Arthur senior and Polly, he’d always been sickly and had died of tuberculosis when his nephews were still children. But like Tommy, he’d taught himself to read almost without any help, and had seemed able to understand and to solve any kind of complicated problem. What he’d lacked was Tommy’s good health and strong will. No, there is no need to bring up the Devil. Tommy’s cleverness might be exceptional, but there are other members of the Shelby family who have a brain.

And yet, even if purely human, Tommy’s cleverness could actually become his downfall, as his mother feared it would. Above all, such cleverness might well condemn him in the eyes of God, and that’s what Polly fears the most.That’s why she always keeps for the end her prayers for Tommy, as if she needed to summon all the strength of her faith to make God understand and forgive.

And she wants to believe that He will. Because He necessarily sees that without the drive and purpose Tommy gives his brothers, Arthur would probably have sunken thoroughly into madness and self-destruction, and John would have soon be at his wit’s end trying to feed his children. Without Tommy’s abilities to make money, Finn, who during the war had had so many health issues, due to deficiences according to the doctor, would never have become that solid little boy. Without Tommy’s protection, Karl would probably have been taken away by the Parish, under the pretext that his father was a wanted man and his mother his accomplice. And as for Polly, she would have probably ended up in a permanent state of drunkenness, for she would not have been able to endure all that on top of what she’s already been through. So Polly keeps praying, and hopes she will be listened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used that second chapter to explore a little bit the Shelbys' family tree. I was interested in the hint at the brother's grandfather, in some episode of season 1. It seems that he was already on the wrong side of the law. I took the opportunity as well to solve a small mystery : why is Thomas Shelby always called Tommy, whereas his younger brother is John and not Johnny ?


	3. Betrayal

He was sitting on the hedge of the dock, looking completely relaxed and carefree. A man in his line of work was bound to make many enemies. Yet he’d not even checked to see if the heavy pilars did not hide a potential attacker.

He should have, though, because it was behind one of them that Freddie was hidden, with a gun in his hand.

Why on eath had he brought that gun ? Did he really think that Tomy would attack him ? Had he really lost all confidence in the man who had been his best friend for years ? Tommy was more than half gypsy, and Freddie knew that gypsies took very seriously the matter of their women’s honnor. But he had married Ada, hadn’t he ? He’d come back for that, thanks to Tommy’s letter.

But it was not fear that Freddie felt, looking at his former friend, now brother-in-law. It was anger. And the more he looked at Tommy, sitting peacefully with his eyes on the canal, the more angry he felt.

Was it possible to admire and despise someone in the same time ? Freddie wouldn’t have tought it was. Yet it seemed that it was exactly what he felt just now… But no, the truth was that he still admired the man, damn him, and at the same time, wholeheartedly despised what he did for a living, what he did with his life now.

The life that he had saved.

He'd acted on a moment's impulse,a crazy move that had made him take the bullet that was meant for Tommy. His only clear thought then had been that Tommy should not die, that he was needed, all concern for his own safety gone. It would have served him right if he had died to give yet another mob boss to Birmingham !

But in spite of the life Tommy was living now, what he admired him for was intrinsically part of him, always had and always would. His fearlessness. His clever, incredibly quick mind that had got them out of so many troubles since they were both six years old. His watchful care and protection of his family, his men, anyone he thought himself responsible for, from his exquisite sister to poor Danny Wizbang.

And that was not all. There was something more about Tommy, something that made people want to be around him, to follow his lead. At school already, in spite of his origins and ragged clothes, the other boys looked up to him. Only in this time, he didn’t want to lead. He would disappear for days, away in a trip on the canal or in one of his uncle’s caravan, leaving Freddie assume the role of ringlider. And then he would come back, effortlessly catching on to share the first place in class, inventing new games and new tricks. And Freddie had never ceased to try to emulate him, whether it was about schoolwork, or about jumping into the canal from the top of the dock, or about any kind of endeavour that his friend would launch them into.

Freddie’s father had warned him agaisnt such friendship, had told him about Tommy’s grandfather many shady activities, about Tommy’s father, who was a good-for-nothing drunk, less famous for his successes as a prizefighter than for his pub brawls.

But Freddie hadn’t cared. He’d known that some day, he and Tommy would do grand things together, would make a difference in the world.

And time had seemed to prove him right. First when Tommy, to win over Gretas’s parents who didn’t want her involved with a gypsy with no regular occupation, had come to work with him at Hamstead colliery for a while. It was maybe the first time that he had followed Freddie’s example, and not the other way around. Of course, Freddie had known that Tommys’s decision to join the communist party with him, a few months later, had less to do with Karl Marx’ s theories than with Greta’s deadly illness, caused by all the textile dust she had dayly inhaled at the factury she worked in. But still, that was some kind of awakening of his class consciouness, as some of his comrads of the party would have said.

And then, the war had started, and the two of them had gone to hell and back. They’d seen the officers, clad in their spotless uniforms, inspect the troops and then safely hide away from the front line while sending thousands of twenty year old boys to the slaughter. They had shared the same hatred for these men, and even more hatred for those above them, who were even farther away from the fight, the ones who had started the butchery.

After the war, Freddie had thought all along, they would fight so that it would never happen again. They would raise their fellowmen, and they would listen to them.

Everyone listened to Tommy when he wanted them to.

But none of this had happened. As soon as he had been back to civilian life, Tommy had taken on the family business and developped it, had recruited an army of thug, and was quickly becoming some kind of underwold king.

Of course, Freddie had tried to talk to him, to make him explain why he was turning his back to all their former goals.

"You’re a dreamer, Freddie", he’d told him -just like his sister- "your revolution is not coming soon, at least in England. And when it comes, if it comes, you can be sure that there will still be some at the top and others at the bottom, to be factory and cannon fodder. Besides, I’m done letting anyone tell me what to think and what to do".

"But couldn’t you at least make an honest living ?" had asked Freddie, realizing that he sounded just like his father.

It was a token of their long friendship that Tommy hadn’t turned on his heels and walked away at that, and Freddie had seen that he had been tempted to do just that. But instead he had sighed and replied, somehow wearily : " ‘Honest living’, as you call it, it no living at all. And remember that you have only to support yourself, whereas I‘ve a whole family to provide for. Arthur is not fit to take a regular job, and I’m starting to think that he never will. John and I would never make enough for all his kids and the rest of the family".

"Many families in the neighborough, even larger than yours, live just like that", Freddie had replied angrily.

"Not mine", had been the dry reply, putting an end to the discussion.

Freddie was well aware that Tommy might consider that he had more reasons to be angry than himself. It was Freddie who had walked away from their frienship. It was him who’d got Ada pregnant out of wedlocks. And yet, for him, the real traitor was Tommy, who had left him to carry alone the dream they had shared once. How could he have turned his back on their past, turned his back on his best friend in such a way ? How was Freddie supposed to go on ? And now, Tommy had even tried to get rid of him, to send him away far from Birmingham. Apparently he wasn’t good enough for his sister, the new princess of Tommy’s budding criminal empire.

It was as if all the anger, disappointment and frustration that had smoldered for months in Freddie’s chest were suddenly moving him into action. He walked traight to his former friend, and pointed the gun at his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always wondered how Freddie had come to point a gun at Tommy, why he seemed so angry at him all the time. Indeed, some have pointed out that he was beheving like a bitter ex, and even if there is no hint at any kind of sexual tension between them, I think that a friendship based upon admiration bordering fascination from Freddie's part, and then bitter disappointment, could be a plausible explanation.

**Author's Note:**

> I find many of the characters of that series very interesting because of their complexity and I wanted to explore their thoughts. I don't know why, I felt like starting with Arthur, maybe because he has the most ambiguous plae in the family hierarchy. He's certainly not in a comfortable situation.
> 
> About the brothers during the war, it is not sure that Arthur and Tommy were together. We don't see Arthur in the tunnels. Arthur was at Gallipoli and Tommy on the Somme (though some british troups were involved in both battle). As for John, if he had already 4 children in 1919, and being the younger brother, I don't think he could have served for very long. Besides, he seems the least traumatized of the three.
> 
> About the age of the characters, we know this :  
\- Tommy and Freddie were best friends since school, so they are probably the same age.  
\- Ada is three years younger than Freddie.  
\- Ada was a kid herself when Polly's children were taken away, as she can't remember of them.  
This means that all the characters in S.1 are much younger that the actors are, Ada being around 20 (if she was small enough in 1906 (13 years before 1919, when the childen were taken) not to know her cousins. That means that Freddie and Tommy are around 23 in S.1. But maybe because of the old-fashioned moustache, I think that Arthur looks much older, it's impossible for me to imagine him not being near his thirties. That why I made him a little separated in age from the others. Anyway for him, as far as I know, we have no clue at all.


End file.
